Students with automotive skills

Here are students who can do cool stuff with cars. Include good stories to illustrate.

Drive Stick Shift

Logan Gerrity (with his left ear)

Evan Miller (maniacally)

Daniel Rooney (erotically)

Brendan Dougherty (smooth as shit out of a duck's ass)

Joe Shoer '06 (that's what she said)

Katie Montgomery (could drive anything from a '82 Toyota Tercel to a forklift, or so she believes)

Jessica Chung (She learned in a week.)

Samantha Peterson (automatics are for women)

Janey Waney Lee (She doesn't even need to say anything.)

Leah Joy Weintraub (In her other life, she actually is a race car driver.) (So she has problems making right turns.)

Lucy Cox-Chapman(Best)

Jay Cox-Chapman(Worst)

Helena Harnik (I have two driving licenses, one for each side of the road. Yeah that's right- I can use either hand to shift. That makes me 2x more stick-savvy than everyone else)

Ronit Bhattacharyya '07 (Only ever driven stick shift; now I just wish I could drive on the right side of the road)

Anne Royston '08 (can shift from both driver's and passenger's seat; working on backseat)

Matthew Earle '07 (Double-clutch downshifts saves wear on synchros, but may have caused the expensive timing chain misalignment he just had fixed)

Travis Vachon (Including sketchy old truck clutches)

Clara Hard (West Coast style)

Nick Colella (Has to watch out for moose)

Katie Josephson (Can drive and teach all her guy friends who, shamefully, ask not to be named)

Phyo Phyu Noe (is a clutch master)

Dave Kleinschmidt (also must watch for moose and road conditions unfavorable to those without snow tires)

Valerie Owens

Rahul Shah (who thinks automatic is for the weak and the infirm)

Drive Really Fast In Reverse

Danny Fischler once pulled a k-turn, maxing at around 20mph, across the width of a freeway entrance. With Becky frickin' Burditt in the back seat. Ca-raaaaaazy.

Sweet Jumps

David Rodriguez likes to go as fast as he can when he sees speed bumps and likes to think he gets an inch or two of air in his 2-ton SUV every time.

Change a Tire

David Rodriguez '06 has changed more than his fair share of tires and learned that salt+rust will effectively glue a wheel onto the axle. Solution? Wedge the flat edge of your hubcap-removal tool into the jammed area and whack the crap out of it with a hammer. Eventually, if you're lucky, that wheel will pop right off.

Toby Hall

Thomas Miller

Liz Weinberg '11 Once got two flat tires within three weeks. Got good at changing them.

Jumpstart a Car

David Rodriguez '06 has also had his fair share of car jumpstarts and knows not to connect the black plug to red and red plug to black. If you do, you will blow the battery fuse in your fusebox and burn out some expensive component in your car. Through his learning processes, he found just how costly it is to replace the stock amp that powers your stereo.

Jonathan Landsman (who's been zapped)

Leah Joy Weintraub (but only if you ask nicely)

Travis Vachon

Toby Hall can't seem to turn his lights off. 3 Jump starts in the first 2 months of having a car. Once flagged down a Prof. then preformed the feat in under a minute and a half.

Walker Matthews drained his battery as soon as he got his truck to Williams, and between late October and the day he left for Christmas Break of 2005, had to jump his truck eight times, including once in the Wal-Mart parking lot and three times during his half-mile drive to the service shop at the end of Cole Avenue.

Parallel Park

Jonathan Landsman, native New Yorker, has parked in spots so tight that getting in and out depended on using room provided by nudging cars parked in front and behind, counting on the flexibility of their shocks. His record in Williamstown was set when moving into his Morgan East room for the summer of 2004, when he parked at the top of Spring Street, leaving enough room on either end of the car to fit one finger, but not two.

Macy Radloff, native Bostonian, was proud of her three finger park -- three in front, zero in the back because she was bumper to bumper with the next car. It seems as though she has been outdone, by one finger. She can, however, parallel park the B&G 12 passenger vans in relatively tight spots, which she still considers an accomplishment.

Jonathan replies: we can call it a tie. I could fit somewhere between 1 and 2 fingers on either side, so if it was one and a half, we're even. Plus, you, being a lady, probably have daintier, thinner fingers.

David Rodriguez is also a native New Yorker and often takes it upon himself to giggle at the non-city folk that have such a tough time parking in huge spots on Spring Street.

Toby Hall, yet another native New Yorker who never had the luxury of a parking garage. I got three words for you: "Alternate Side Parking"

Rahul Shah, like a monkey can write Shakespeare

Get Parking Tickets

Chris St.Cyr (5 tickets and the infamous car boot to the front tire in first two months here as a freshman)

Evan Miller (6 in as many days, although 4 were successfully appealed.)

Jonathan Landsman '05 two in three days in Queens, NYC. Both while at the vehicle, one while inside it.

David Rodriguez accidentally left car parked illegally outside of Mission for days to find 4 tickets upon his return.

Lucy Cox-Chapman forgot that her car was parked at the end of Spring Street for four days and found 3 tickets when she finally remembered.

Charlie Giammattei, who left his car in front of Bryant House in 2005 for four days, incurring TEN tickets from Security. He then claimed to Dave Boyer that the car was broken and he had taken it to Flamingo Motors for repairs. Dave Boyer knew Charlie's car was American-made and Flamingo only deals with foreign-made vehicles. Somehow, Charlie managed to graduate without ever settling up with Security.

Toby Hall 2 tickets at the Greylock parking trap, 1 in NYC, from a meter-maid who was waiting by the car until expiration, 1 outside of Weston for being an idiot and parking overnight because he had forgotten where he left his car.

Dave Kleinschmidt '09 thought it would be cute to part a JA's car as close to Fay as possible, which was inside the then-removed vehicle-blocking metal posts, thus earning a parking ticket upon emerging from the dorm less than 10 minutes later.

Get Speeding Tickets

David Rodriguez (2 tickets, 88 in a 55 in Virginia and 91 in a 65 in New Jersey--cut down to 84 by the nice state trooper--within a month) Total fines: 275+170 = $445
Total amount in fines saved by the purchase of a high-end radar detector: more than you can imagine

Matthew Earle $605 ($305 ticket + $300 NY State fee for points on license) on I-87 south of Plattsburgh for 88, that they know about, in a 65)

Evan Miller (88 on I-88 in Bainbridge, NY, incurring what seemed to be a reasonable $155 fine . . . that later blossomed into a $455 fine due to New York State's $300 "Driver Responsibility Assessment." If you go 21 MPH over the speed limit in New York, then in addition to your ticket, you will instantly qualify for 6 "points," which translates into an assessment of $100 per annum for three years.)

Andrew Wang ($115 on I-80 in Wayne, NJ for doing 88 in a 55...I swear to God I thought it was a 65...)

Cat Vielma 4 tickets, over 70 mph in a 45mph speeding zone...it's called Lake Shore Drive, and no one will stop me... not even $115 City of chicago tickets

especially if daddy pays for the $115 tickets

Sarah Steege 1 ticket, $200ish, at the beach in Wilmington, NC... doing 43 in a poorly marked 25mph school zone (that only applied from 2:00-3:00), ticketed at 2:55 pm.

Danny Fischler 1 ticket, $239, going 75 on Route 7 N. Don't speed in Pownal. Ever.

Cam Henry: $125 ticket in Harrison, NY reduced to $75...84 in a 55 on I-287 (do not speed on that road) which was reduced on the spot to a seatbelt violation

Spike Friedman $270- 99 on the 5 in LA... actually a little more, but I was sober so it was cool... well, except that I was violating two license restrictions... so it wasn't cool $220- 68 on Rt 7 in VT... Driving up to Middlebury... happened 1 month after I got the first ticket off my insurance record... and there's no traffic school in VT.

Jonathan Landsman '05 $280 for 75 in a 55 on the Taconic State Parkway on the way to visit Williams. Got me literally at my exit.

Thomas Miller $190 doing 84 in a 65 somewhere on the Mass Pike. It was pretty much the best first speeding ticket ever.

Rahul Shah $450 for doing 70 in a short stretch of 35 at 2 am outside Pittsfield.